Ashes to Ashes
by Intricate Fox
Summary: Thor brings Loki back from the dead, but what he brings back may not be his brother.


**Prompt**: _I have seen a lot of prompts where Loki is brought back from death and everything is great. But I wan't a story when he comes back wrong._ _Death is a mystery, even to the gods, and it does not give back what belongs to it without a when Loki dies and Thor brings him back something goes wrong. Loki is no longer Loki, or at least not the Loki he knows not even the crazy homicidal post-Thor Loki._ _You get to decide just exactly what is wrong with him. Is he just a soulless shell? Is he even physically recognizable or is he a bloody gory mess? Is it even him Thor has brought back or is it a horrible abomination from beyond wearing his skin like a cheap meat-suit? Just go nuts with the possibilities._

* * *

Loki was alive.

Wasn't that all that_ should _matter?

Thor downed the rest of his tankard in one fell guzzle, throwing the empty container into the fireplace with such severe passion you would think he were celebrating. He wasn't.

Why should he when people refused to accept all that he has done?

Not even Mother could stand to be alone with the son Thor had brought back to her. Mother above all had loved Loki as much as Thor had, had showered him with the unconditional love only a Mother could give a child, even if he was not of her body. She had turned a blind eye on each of her youngest son's faults over the past few decades. So why could she be not a little bit more accepting when Loki was _here_, raised from Hel and roaming these halls presently?

Thor sacrificed much delving his hand into Hela's pool, searching for the right hand to grab at and ignoring his niece's childlike presence and repeated warnings that fell on deaf ears. He needed his brother back. He loved Loki and risked the chance of also being pulled into the sea of bodies that grabbed back, skin slick with mildew and rot.

He knew Loki's hand as soon as he touched it, had he not held it so much in the last millennia of years he may have never found the Trickster god. He had dragged Loki towards him and enveloped him in arms, pushing back oiled black hair and cupping the waxen skin of his brother's slender neck. Hela had fallen silent by then and was privy to watch Thor, Loki draped across his arms like a morbid bride, storm from the deathly realm and return back to Asgard.

This time he would do it _right._

This time he would be the _perfect_ elder brother.

Odin was furious, naming the thing an abomination as he swayed next to Thor and gazed blankly past the old king as though he were not even there. Frigga had kept a hand to her mouth and had shaken her head at Thor's plea for assistance in his case.

"That thing is _not_ my child," she had told him fighting around the increasing waver as she took in her newly returned son. Her face had twisted, repulsion and something akin to disgust washing her features. Thor had roared at her, yanking Loki back to his side and covering his eyes as both of his parents looked upon him with such unsympathetic reverence.

"He is my brother!" He boomed, ignoring Odin's commands to halt and reason instead leading Loki back to his rooms.

He had made a bath for his brother, wishing to wipe away the stale blood and black gunk that covered his once coveted form.

"You're alright brother. You're home," Thor had told him, wiping a damp cloth across Loki's face, still glazed and unrelenting. "Will you not speak to me Loki?"

A trickle of blood ran from thin, chapped lips in answer.

* * *

"Does he not speak Thor?" Fandral had asked at one point when finding Thor in the gardens, sitting on the grass beside Loki whose eyes had finally begun to focus and follow movements. His right eye had also become a deep scarlet red; no pupil appearing in its depths, contrasting deeply with the flat green in his other.

At Fandral's words Loki's eyes had slowly roamed towards him, the warrior shifting uncomfortably on his feet at the attention.

"Not yet," Thor had murmured back releasing the blades of teal grass he had ripped from the ground and showering it onto the cloth he sat upon.

"It feels unnatural to have the Silvertongue without his tongue, don't you agree?"

Thor's gaze narrowed, turning his eyes on his old friend, "Did Sif tell you to talk to me?"

Fandral's mouth opened quickly but shut after a moment's hesitation, his eyes flickered back to the dark haired man before back to his friend's, "She's worried. We _all_ are. Ever since you…" he trailed off shrugging but Thor's temper had been spurred.

"You think it wrong of me to spend time with my brother, the brother who has been dead for almost a decade past, that I should abandon him after I have raised him from his grave?"

"It isn't Loki, Thor!" Fandral had snapped at him suddenly, thrusting a hand towards the former trickster who did not even flinch at the emphasis.

The golden haired prince glowered at the warrior before grabbing Loki's hand and pulling him to his feet, his movements still wobbly and unco-ordinated as Thor removed him from the vicinity.

"Don't listen to him brother," Thor had whispered into the ebony locks, ignoring the bittersweet smell that wafted from it like rotten wood. His arms squeezed around the stiff figure in them as they lay upon his bed. "He doesn't know what he is saying."

* * *

Loki smiled back at Thor a couple of months into his resurrection, a distorted image upon Thor's eyes from the careless smile Loki would have given him in the time before his passing, and the time before they were enemies.

His lips appeared stretched in the effort, his eyes were still blank and without feeling, _mismatched_.

The sullen skin stretched out upon Loki's skull was hued blue, the Jotun in him rising from below the surface and making itself known in patches upon his skin.

Loki had at one point broken his hand and not reacted to it, only when Thor had returned to his chambers and reached out to his brother's hand, skewed and _mangled_, had Loki seemed to notice it vaguely before returning to his seat by the window. He would stare into the web constructed in the window's alcove while Thor fussed around him making splints and trying to get Loki's hand back into shape.

"Why do you not react, Loki?" Thor had asked in increasing frustration, placing his forehead on Loki's lap and breathing in that smell he had grown used to. He refused to remind himself of the dead dear he and Loki had found in the woods when young, it's carcass torn open and imbedded with feasting maggots that squirmed inside.

He remembered Loki's scream at the sight, and how Thor had petted his small back when vomiting into the bushes some way off. Thor sighed at the memory, taking the mangled hand in his own, "What have you been doing to cause you such harm?"

Loki did not answer. He never did.

* * *

"You need to stop this Thor," Odin had told him as Thor once again removed the bloody sheets from the bed he and his brother slept in. Loki had begun to vomit up voluminous amounts of red tissue during the night, hacking into the sheets like an ill cat before staring at Thor until the golden god had risen from the bed and ran from the room, leaving Loki staring after him.

The healers Thor begged for refused to come to his aid and Odin had been notified of the disturbance.

"I knew something like this would occur, Thor," his father had told him softly looking over to the occupied chair near the window where Loki sat, unnatural in appearance. Loki reached out to the spider's web and snatched the wriggling arachnid from its carefully constructed trap, letting it run erratically through his fingers. "What you brought back…"

"I brought my brother back."

"_No_, Thor. You brought back the _shell_ of your brother," Odin reprimanded him, cringing as Loki quickly picked the spider from his shoulder and stuffed it into his mouth. "That thing is not _my_…not _Loki."_

Thor frowned deeply, forehead furrowing and shaking his head slowly, "You are wrong."

"That _thing_ is a corpse Thor. Loki is long gone from its hide," Odin told him carefully, as though speaking to a child, "He _died_ Thor, he sacrificed himself for the greater good, his soul has departed into grander pastures…"

"-No…"

"_Loki is gone."_

"NO!" Thor roared, thunder booming outside as he pushed his father from the room slamming it behind him. He shut his eyes against it all, banging his fists against the wood which shook in its frame. He inhaled deeply and then slowly exhaled, shaking his head against his Father's words before returning to Loki's side.

He picked the detached spider's leg from Loki's lips like he would have a child with crumbs, flicking it away onto the floor. Thor reached forward and gently grabbed Loki's head, angling it to rest on his abdomen while he calmed his thoughts.

His father was wrong. Loki was right here_, alive._

He dragged his fingers through greasy ebony locks pausing when the dark strands remained tangled in them once pulling away.

Thor's eyes welled as he brought his hand to his face, his lips pressing together in an upset frown as he let the hair fall to the ground, remembering with such clarity the way Loki would fuss and preen over his hair when they were younger.

Thor recalled the way the younger Loki would give him permission to run his hand through its non-existent tangles and relished in the way it felt of dark silk, soft against his skin.

It felt like a heavy piece of lead had been stabbed into his chest when he realised that Loki, once so vibrant, was now slowly falling apart in his hands.

* * *

Over time it got worse, and soon enough Thor could no longer ignore Loki's slow decomposition.  
His eyes, nose and mouth would bleed at the strangest times. His hair was left in patches upon a deformed scull which had begun to form rough callouses in heavy mounds, and his teeth had also begun to fall out. His skin was now mottled blue and green, and the smell was _horrific._

"Take him away!" Frigga had screamed at the sight when they had crossed her path in the gardens, her maidens aiding her to a seat as she cried into her arms and continued to shriek, "I don't need to see him this way!"

Thor had kept Loki in his chambers for a near week after that episode, afraid their mother would fall into another fit should she lay eyes upon her youngest son's ever deteriorating form.

_It would get better_, he kept telling himself. _Loki was still here wasn't he? Still alive._

But he knew now with increasing clarity, that things were _not_ right.

He walked upon Loki one time feasting upon the body of a magpie which was foolish enough too had rested on the windowsill, Loki's hands had reached forward and snatched it into greedy paws before delving fangs into its feathered body.

The silvery grey scales which had begun to imbed itself into the linings of his jaw and forehead glistening in the evening light as blood splattered across them.

Thor hid in the library for hours; in the crevice Loki had often escaped to when he was upset as a boy. He traced his fingers upon the carved out name in the wooden rafter, neat and cursive and perfect, just like his brother _had_ been.

He cursed himself.

"Prince Thor," a voice called out to him, startling him from his frozen thoughts. He looked up to find Balder, a much revered young man for his simple ingenuity and generosity. He held a book in his hand and looked upon his prince, "In thought?"

Thor nodded slowly, dropping his hand from the engraved wood, "Yes."

"Prince Loki favoured this spot."

"He did."

"I am sorry for your loss."

Thor gritted his teeth and looked away from that too sincere face, relinquishing the urge to scream at him._ Loki is alive! He is in my rooms at this very moment!_ "He killed you."

Balder smiled at that before shrugging, hand reflexively going up to his whitened locks. "He must have thought I deserved it."

"You were saved from Hel. You were pulled from the sea by my father for your deeds were you not?"

"I was," Balder conceded with a short nod.

"Why is Loki not…." Thor stammered to find the right words.

_Why isn't my brother perfect? Why isn't everything alright? Where is my brother?_

"Thor," Balder sighed shaking his head, "Loki is _dead._ Unlike me, he did not wish for saviours to come free him from Hel's pools as many still hope. I made a choice to remain with soul when death struck me, Loki was _smarter._ He always was. Death struck him and he took its hand with a firm grip, while I had run in the opposite direction."

The white haired God of Beauty laughed at the thought, which faded at Thor's refusal to join. He cleared his throat and regained his composure his eyes falling seriously, a frown creasing his lips. "That thing in your room isn't Loki. You only wish to see that which is not there."

"I miss him," the prince choked out suddenly. "I miss my brother."

"I know Thor, but letting his image foul in the place where once was love is dishonourable to his memory. Loki wouldn't want this. Would he?"

* * *

Thor returned to his room where Loki sat upon the floor, smearing a bloody carcass against the marble and fur carpets.

Thor lifted him easily as though a child and placed him upon the bed, taking the dead creature from his hands and flinging it away.

He wiped away the blood still smeared across Loki's lips before pushing him back into the pillows and mattress. Thor's fingers lingered over the grey scales, making sure not to brush the pustules forming and the small tentacles that started to sprout from their circumferences, swaying like daisies in the wind.

Loki looked up at him, blinking vacantly. Thor silently reached for a pillow, squeezing it in his grip as he took in the deformed sight of this being, now undecipherable from the boy Thor used to know.

"I am sorry," Thor whispered out brokenly as it continued to stare up at him, "so sorry."

The thing looked back up at him and after a moment and…_nodded._..

Thor sobbed as he brought the pillow down upon its face.

It did not struggle.


End file.
